Invited to attend FES' function in New York - Day One

I am invited by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) to participate in the First Fall Academy for Young International Policy Analysts “Understanding the United Nations.”

The Fall Academy will take place in New York from Monday, 6 November 2006 until Friday, 10 November 2006.

This will be an excellent opportunity to deepen my understanding of the UN. More specifically, I can be informed about the capacities of the UN to deal with policy issues that are relevant to my work in Malaysia.

The first day of the programme was merely familiarising with the structures, operations and daily works and tasks handled by the different entity under the umbella of UN.

Mr Jurgen Stetten and Volker Lehmann from FES New York first briefed us on the programme. It was followed by a talk by Mr Hazem Fahmy, Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General. Mr Hazem Fahmy is currently serving in the UN Secretariat and he talked about the challenges of reforming the UN.

We were then brought to the UN building for a guided tour for one hour by walking to the UN headquarters.

In the afternoon, Sebastian Einsiedel from International Peace Academy talked on Terrorism. International Peace Academy is an independent, international institution dedicated to promoting the prevention and settlement of armed conflicts between and within states through policy research and development.

In the context of their works with UN, IPA mainly serves to channelling external researches to the UN for decision-making.

We learnt more about UN Peacekeeping operations when we were given the last talk of the day by Lisa Buttenheim from the UN Department of Peace-Keeping Operations (Asia and Middle East Division).